Thread of Memory Revamp Version
by WynterSky
Summary: The Uchiha discover Itachi's plan before he can put it into play and use an ancient technique to banish him to another world. Four years later 'Hide' is living a relatively normal life when a bunch of weirdos turn up, claiming that he's a ninja and that they can return him to the family he doesn't remember. (expansion of older version)
1. Prologue

[A/N: This is a highly expanded revamp of a slightly older story that I've been working on for a while. This is the one that will be updated from now on.]

Prologue:

Itachi stared absently at the red and gold leaves drifting along the swift-flowing water of the river before tossing a small rock in. There was barely any splash as it sank into the water.

"Something on your mind, Itachi?" Shisui asked quietly.

Itachi shrugged but didn't answer. His troubles were nothing he could tell Shisui about, anyway.

Shisui had been such a faithful friend, even if the two of them had always been on separate paths: Shisui's for the clan, Itachi's for the village. It was the least Itachi could do to get it over with now and spare his cousin what would come later on.

Itachi threw another rock into the water for the sake of delaying the inevitable.

"Itachi..."

"I'm fine, Shisui," Itachi lied. "Really I am."

"Itachi, I'm sorry," Shisui said, gently putting his hand on Itachi's arm.

Itachi turned to look at him in confusion. He should be the one apologizing, but Shisui would never get to hear it—

The senbon whipped past his face almost too quickly for Itachi to realize that it had cut him. Shisui hadn't thrown it, Shisui was still right next to him, but his grip had transferred firmly to Itachi's wrist so that he couldn't dodge the next two senbon that struck him in the shoulder. Itachi's vision was already blurring by the time those struck; whatever drug or poison was being used worked very fast.

_And so now it's all come to nothing,_ he thought before everything went black.

Fugaku sighed as he locked the door of the Uchiha clan's secret council chamber, then turned to look down at the unconscious body of his eldest son. Itachi didn't look like a formidable ANBU agent as he lay on the tatami floor with his dark hair spilling out around him.

_Where has his hairtie gone?_ Fugaku thought absently. Perhaps Shisui had taken it for a keepsake; he had been furious about the role Fugaku had asked him to play in all this. In this state, Itachi looked small and vulnerable, and the worst thing about it was that he really was now.

"He is a traitor!" one of the elders was saying. "We must get rid of him before he can pose any further threat to us!"

Sadly, Fugaku had to agree to both statements. While he could hardly believe that his own son had fallen so completely under Konoha's control that he would kill his own family just to settle matters between the Uchiha and the village, he couldn't deny the evidence that had been found about Itachi's mission.

"Very well," he agreed with a heavy heart. "Something must be done—But I have a better idea than just killing him."

He could at least offer his child this slight protection.

It took hours to prepare the seals, and by the time it was almost complete it was dangerously close to the time Sasuke would arrive home from the Academy. While Fugaku knew that Sasuke would never be able to find his way to the secret Uchiha council chambers, he still needed time to think of a way to explain Itachi's disappearance.

As the last symbol was drawn, Fugaku gently pulled Itachi's Konoha headband off, placing it in an inner pocket of his own jacket before carrying the boy over to the circle, stepping carefully to avoid any of the calligraphy. "You may begin," he said, setting Itachi down in the center of the circle. He didn't move at all, and Fugaku began to worry that something was really wrong with him before remembering that the drug wasn't supposed to wear off for more than twelve hours.

Fugaku didn't participate in the actual jutsu, claiming it was because he wanted to say he had nothing to do with Itachi vanishing without actually having to quite lie. In truth, it was because he didn't want to help do this to his son.

It took a surprisingly short time: the gathered elders began to push their chakra into the seal, and white light began to fill the symbols. As the light reached Itachi's body, it wrapped slowly around him until Fugaku could no longer look for fear of being blinded. Then there was a sharp, searing flash and everything went back to the way it had been before, except that Itachi was no longer there.

The boy opened his eyes slowly. His head ached horribly and he had the strangest notion that there was something important he needed to do. When he tried to sit up, he found that he didn't have the strength, so he lay where he was looking up at the sky. It was a brilliant blue with lots of fluffy clouds in it, just like the sky ought to have, but something seemed off. Perhaps it was the precise shade of blue or the smell of the air, but when he tried to pinpoint what exactly was wrong it slipped away.

His head still hurt, and he closed his eyes hoping that would relieve the pain. He must have passed out again, because when he opened his eyes after what he thought was only a brief time he could hear footsteps and voices approaching.

"Natsuko-nee-chan, how much further is it to the train station?" said one voice. It sounded like a small girl's, high-pitched and cheerful..

"Just a couple minutes further...Eriko-chan, come back here!" a second voice said (this one sounding older and more authoritative) as pattering little footsteps approached where the boy lay. "You don't want to get dirty on your first day in a new school, do you?"

"But nee-chan, there's a boy by the road! Why's he by the road?"

"What?" The heavier footsteps of the older girl approached, and she set another child down as she stopped. "Oh goodness...Eriko-chan, Aimi-chan, you stay right there, understand?"

The boy opened his eyes again to see a brown-haired girl leaning over him, biting her lip in worry. "Are you okay?" she asked quickly as she saw he was awake. "Look, maybe you'd better not sit up," she said, although she slipped a supportive arm around his shoulders all the same. "Can I do anything for you? Can I call your parents? What's your name?"

The boy started to reply, then frowned in concentration. "I don't know," he whispered, suddenly panicky. "I don't remember—I don't remember _anything_."


	2. Chapter 1

[A/N: I forgot to say this in the prologue, whoops. This fic probably wouldn't have gone anywhere without Rayneken, my beta/editor while I was revamping. Thanks so much!]

Chapter 1:

_Four years later:_

Hide's day started about the same as any other, at least since he could remember, anyway. He woke up gasping for breath and shoved the cat off his face. Bakeneko, satisfied that her human was awake, sat back and meowed insistently. By this point the routine was familiar, even if Hide still occasionally felt that something was vaguely off.

"All right, all right," Hide sighed. "Why can't you get Natsuko-nee-san to feed you?"

While neither he nor Natsuko were sure which one was older, it just seemed right to call her his older sister. She certainly had assumed that role ever since he'd been found lying in the road through the rice fields, even before he'd been sort-of adopted into her family. He'd been living in the same house with them ever since.

Quietly padding into the kitchen—Bakeneko woke up earlier than his mother and sisters and consequently, so did he—Hide filled a dish with dry cat food and set it in front of the cat as his eyes lit on the clock. It was almost seven-thirty in the morning, and for some reason that number seemed important. Today was Saturday, so it couldn't be school...

"Job!" he gasped before bolting out of the kitchen, forgetting that he had been being quiet. Today was the first time he'd been asked to work on a week-end and he had completely forgotten. Hide hated the occasional flashes of forgetfulness he had; they'd gotten him in trouble more than once.

He dressed in record time, bolted down a glass of orange juice, and dashed outside, not even bothering to buckle the straps on his helmet before starting his scooter and racing off down the country road.

"Sorry I'm late!" he called almost before he had stopped the scooter ten minutes later. "Akiyama-san, I'm so sorry," he continued as he ducked into the back of the little restaurant. "I kind of...forgot..."

The elderly ramen chef shrugged amiably, waving a small, wrinkled hand as Hide entered the kitchen. "Don't worry, Hide-kun, I can let it go this once. Nobody wants ramen delivered this early, anyway. I actually wanted your help preparing before I open up."

Chores like scrubbing pots, bowls, the counter, cooking utensils, and whatever else Akiyama-san thought of were hard work, but it was completely worth it because it gave Hide a certain extent of financial freedom. He'd been able to buy his scooter (which was admittedly somewhat decrepit) with his first few months' pay, which gave him a means of transportation as well.

After a few hours, Akiyama Ramen opened for business, so Hide got to rest for a while and read his new economics book before his first delivery of the day. His acquaintances at school—he didn't exactly have any proper friends, although some of them were closer than others—thought he was strange for liking non-fiction, but Hide was strange in a lot of other aspects, too, so he didn't exactly care.

He didn't see much point in bothering with what had happened in the 1138th chapter of One Piece (or whatever it was on) anyway. The one fictional franchise he had any time for was Star Trek, which didn't do his Normal Highschool Student standing much good. Life was indeed hard for a Japanese Trekkie, which was part of the reason he had this job: someday he dreamed of going to an American Star Trek convention. At this rate, he might reach his goal within a couple years, although keeping the scooter running was a constant drain on his savings.

It wasn't too long before someone called in an order, so Hide put his book away, made sure the case of ramen was properly secured to the back of the scooter, and sped off.

Since Hide lived on the outskirts of a smallish farming town, he knew practically everyone, or could at least recognize them. Therefore, when he passed a man with silver hair, an olive cargo vest, and an orange book held in front of his face he was understandably a little confused.

Trying to pretend that everything was completely normal, Hide took a rather unconventional route to his delivery address so that he could pass the stranger again, driving a little more slowly this time.

Behind the white-haired man (who was obviously not old, due to his erect posture) there were three other, younger strangers. Hide knew he hadn't seen them before because he was sure he would remember a little girl with pink hair.

_Maybe they're cosplayers,_ he thought as he headed for his destination. Although he didn't pay much attention to anime, his younger sisters did, and he had sat through more episodes of Tokyo Mew Mew and similar things than he cared to think about. Lots of anime characters had pink hair, or oddly styled white, blond, or blue-black hair. Still, why on earth anyone would want to cosplay in the middle of nowhere was a bit beyond him.

They didn't really act like cosplayers, either—they seemed to be trying to avoid attention, and they clothes they were wearing looked worn enough to be regular wear. The adult's olive-drab vest looked almost as if it was military issue, and the clothing the two boys wore was of similarly serviceable design. The girl's dress was more decorative, but she wore a belt of leather pouches that matched those the others had.

With their strange clothing and overly alert mannerisms, they were out-of-place and recognizable enough that Hide could spot them almost instantly. This happened again on his second delivery. When he saw them during his third delivery he was frankly concerned, and by his fourth he was approaching Freaked Out.

"Akiyama-san," he said quietly when he returned, "I think I'm being followed."

"Newspaper people again?" the older man asked, topping a bowl of ramen with some green onions and sliced boiled egg before setting it in front of a customer.

"I don't think so," Hide said, "at least, they didn't have any cameras. I've never seen them before." The newspapers had mostly lost interest in him after the first six months since had been found, although Hide still got the occasional generous offer for an interview, which he invariably refused no matter how tempting the money was. He liked his privacy and he intended to keep it.

"Well, if you think you should go home, I'll understand..." Akiyama-san said, but Hide shook his head.

"I'll be fine," he said, although he wasn't exactly sure this was true. Akiyama Ramen needed its delivery boy and he couldn't run out on a job he had promised to do. "I do have the scooter, so I can go faster than them anyway."

Over his next few deliveries, Hide pointedly did not look around, hoping that maybe if he didn't see them they'd go away.

_That was pretty stupid,_ he decided later as he spotted the foursome yet again. How were they managing to follow him so closely? While Hide's scooter wasn't state-of-the-art by any standards, it still made good time, certainly much faster than anyone on foot like his little posse of stalkers.

Finally, on his way back from another delivery, Hide decided he had had enough. Parking the scooter, he stalked angrily toward the little group he saw sitting on a park bench and started shouting. "Look, I don't know who you are and this isn't funny, so why are you...following...me?" he finished weakly.

They weren't there anymore. Hide _knew_ they had been, but they couldn't possibly have gotten out of sight in the time he had taken to walk there. Was his mind playing tricks on him again? He'd never had hallucinations before, but he'd been told it was a possibility by the specialists who had examined him after he was first found—still, if it hadn't happened yet, why now?

Sighing, Hide got back on the scooter. He didn't see the strangers again the rest of the day.

The next day, Hide didn't venture out of the house at all, making up vague excuses when Natsuko, Eriko and Aimi tried to talk him into coming with them out in the fields to fly the kites they had won at a festival during the summer.

Star Trek was a small consolation for the solitude. Hide tried getting Bakeneko to sit with him, but the megalomaniac silver tabby was not in a mood to permit such behaviour and leaped out of his arms every time he picked her up.

"Are you sure you're all right, Hide-kun?" his mother asked after dinner. Obviously she wasn't really his mother, but the familial terminology came easily, and she never treated him any differently from her own three children except for sometimes being a little more concerned. Today, she had been away since early morning working with a client and looked terribly tired. Hide had heated up some leftovers; it was the least he could do. "Are you not feeling well? I know Tou-san's away again, but I can always call him if you think you're ill..."

Hide shook his head. "I'm fine, really. I just don't feel like going out, that's all. Don't worry about me, I haven't had any problems like that in years."

When Hide had first come to stay with the Takedas, after a long stay in the hospital before that, he had caused them a bit of worry with his overly jumpy behavior and a couple of incidents where he had actually lashed out at them—these episodes would probably have been flashbacks if it weren't for the fact that he _still_ couldn't remember anything.

He still felt bad about it later, although he had never done anything more than frighten them. After all that, to make things worse, he had come down with a couple of serious illnesses that no-one in Japan was really supposed to get anymore, after which it had been discovered that he had never been vaccinated. All in all, any odd behavior on Hide's part, even after several years, was enough to start her fussing enough to smother him.

Mrs. Takeda looked a little relieved. "All right, then. You'd better feel like going out tomorrow, though," she added with an authoritative nod. "You can't miss school again so soon."

Hide sighed moodily after she had left the dining room. School was not one of the highlights of his life; it came very near to being the bane of his existence. He and Natsuko did go to a nice high school (even if it was thirty minutes away by train) but being an amnesiac teenage genius, if he did say so himself, didn't do a whole lot for one's social life. Still, there was science club, which was fun since he got to blow things up, and economics club, which was fun because he got to plot how to take over the world, so things weren't all bad.

As he got up on Monday to Bakeneko smothering him yet again, Hide had the vain hope that there might have been freakishly unseasonal snows and he wouldn't have to go to school. There was, of course, no such luck, so he got his uniform on, ate breakfast, and walked with Natsuko to the station. The twins were students of the elementary school in town, and therefore wouldn't have to take the train to school for several more years.

Even though he dreaded seeing the strangers because that would _prove_ they were stalking him, Hide couldn't help looking around for them out of curiosity. He didn't see them on the walk to the station, so he began to relax.

"Hey, Hide, are you feeling all right?" Natsuko asked as they boarded the train. "You've been acting funny ever since Saturday."

"It's nothing to worry about, Nee-san," Hide replied. "In fact, I'm feeling a lot better."

"Oh. Well, that's good then," Natsuko said. She had been the one who found Hide lying drugged by the side of the road four years ago, and she had assumed responsibility for him ever since. He liked it most of the time—it gave him a feeling of belonging, especially in the first few months when he'd been so bewildered with everything—but she could be a little overbearing at times.

Eriko and Aimi looked up to him, and Hide considered them quite fun to play with, when they didn't want to watch Pretty Cure at the same time he wanted to watch Star Trek. They had only been six back then, and hadn't exactly known what was going on when Hide was suddenly dumped into their lives. Luckily, they had liked the idea of having an older brother, and Hide had liked being an older brother.

Somehow he had the feeling he must have had siblings before he had lost his memory. It was strange, thinking that there might be someone out there missing you, even if you didn't know a thing about them or have any emotional attachment. Well, that wasn't true: he had a vague sort of longing, but for what he didn't know.

"We're here, Hide, so you can stop spacing out," Natsuko said, shaking him out of his reverie.

The doors of the train opened, and Hide braced himself for another day of school.  
…...

Hide and Natsuko were in different classes, so they split up as soon as they entered the building. Hide didn't mind this, although it did get a little annoying when Natsuko brought friends home and he didn't know who they were.

His classroom was as noisy and boisterous as it always was before class started, and Hide headed over to the quieter area near the back where he usually sat. Airi, the chemistry club vice-president (and therefore someone he spent a lot of time with; Hide was the treasurer) was already there.

After pulling his chair out, Hide was about to sit down when it was suddenly jerked out from underneath him. Airi gasped, but Hide twisted as he fell and managed to land in a deft crouch. The jokester who had grabbed the chair stared in surprise, and Hide had a feeling he was probably mirroring the other boy's expression. _Where did that come from?_

"Are you hurt, Hide-kun?" Airi asked once Hide had retrieved his chair and sat down again, successfully this time.

Hide shook his head. "No, I'm fine…I think…"

"How did you do that?"

"I really don't know—it was like instinct, or something."

Airi tipped her head to one side thoughtfully, and Hide knew she was thinking about the amnesia thing again. Not all his classmates knew about it, but he had explained it to some of the ones he was closer to, Airi among them. Thankfully, she didn't say anything about that. Hide didn't like wondering who he might have been _before_, it made him strangely lonely and even innocent questions could set that off.

"So," Airi started again in a changing-the-subject sort of tone, "I needed to talk to you about our club's budget for the school fair."

"I can't spare any more out of my paycheck," Hide said quickly. "I'm saving up."

"For that fancy three-foot model of the _Enterprise _you're so mad about, right?"

"Well…yes," Hide admitted. He had been planning on how to hang it from the ceiling ever since he had seen it in a model shop window. "And a vintage Captain Kirk action figure, but if we _really_ need some money I guess that could wait a while longer. We do want to make an impression, after all."

Airi nodded. "I was thinking of getting some plexiglass to go in front, in case everything from the reaction doesn't go straight up. That way we can use some chemicals with a bit more punch."

"Sounds good," Hide said. "I take it the car thing fizzled out, then?"

"That's right," Airi replied with a little pout. "The junkyard people would let us take it, all right, but there's no way to get it here."

"Too bad," Hide sighed, leaning forward and resting his chin on his hands. Blowing up a whole car would have been fun. But then, the school probably never would have permitted it, anyway. That was really backwards of them—a massive explosion was _obviously_ several orders of magnitude better than a silly maid café or somesuch that always managed to be so popular every year.

School went better than it normally did that day. In fact, Hide thought that it went pretty well. Natsuko left before he did, since their clubs were on different schedules. He stayed later than usual in the chemistry club, working on a new experiment of his own, as a little break from the project for the school fair. This one was turning funny colors, which it wasn't supposed to do, but at least it hadn't blown anything up like the last one had. Hide did like blowing things up—quite a lot, in fact—but only when he had been planning to. That way he had enough time to get out of the way.

Almost all the other students, even Airi, who often stayed late, had left by the time Hide was through, so he walked out the gate alone. He turned in the direction of the station, only to freeze as he spotted a by-now _very_ familiar olive vest, orange book, and spiky white hairstyle. The owner of these lowered the book from his face and Hide could see that he wore a blue mask which covered the lower half of his face and a slanted headband with some sort of symbol that covered most of the upper half. It looked like a logo of some kind, but Hide couldn't remember seeing that abstract leaf design anywhere before.

"You've been following me!" Hide said accusingly, looking around to see if there was anyone in earshot should he call for help. Considering the state he'd been found in, one of many theories was that he had been kidnapped and he didn't want to repeat that experience—if he had experienced it, that is. If he hadn't, then he really wanted to avoid a first time.

The white-haired man shrugged. "I assure you we had good reason. We'd like to talk to you."


	3. Interlude I

[A/N: This is the first section of completely original material.]

Interlude I:

_A few days before…_

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Kakashi asked. "If nothing comes of this and your family discovers you took the scroll…"

"I don't care what happens," Sasuke said stubbornly, although his stress was clear. He was clinging to the aged scroll as if it were a lifeline, and by his rumpled clothing it was obvious that he had barely slept the night before. "Nobody will tell me anything, and this is my last clue. I have to find out what happened to Itachi—I _have_ to." His voice wavered a little as he spoke, and he glanced nervously towards the door; Itachi's name was an unutterable taboo in the Uchiha household, and Sasuke was a little wary of saying it even though they were halfway across town in a currently deserted warehouse.

"As long as you're sure, then," Kakashi replied. If he refused to aid his student now, Sasuke was determined enough that he would probably go and do something on his own, maybe getting himself hurt or in terrible trouble with his family. Besides that, Kakashi was curious as well about what had happened. "And of course, there's no getting rid of you two," he continued, turning to Naruto and Sakura.

"You've got that right."

"Not for a million bowls of ramen!"

Sasuke raised an eyebrow.

"Well, maybe for a million bowls of ramen, but who would have that around here anyway?"

"Okay, that's enough, Naruto," Kakashi cut in before the two boys could start in on their favorite pastime of needling each other. "Now, Sasuke, let's see this scroll and you can explain why you think it has something to do with your brother."

Sasuke nodded and knelt down to roll out the scroll on the floor of the warehouse. Kakashi helped him carefully, and pushed Naruto back so he wouldn't touch the browning, fragile paper. "I found this in the clan archives," Sasuke began.

"The one no one is allowed to enter without permission of the clan council?" Kakashi asked.

"Yeah," Sasuke said. "I…don't have permission. But anyway," he continued hurriedly, "I found traces of Ita—_his_ chakra adhering to this seal scroll. I read once that if someone had used a seal, any residual chakra of theirs would be attracted to it or a copy of it. So, I took this one. I'm not really sure what it does, though."

Kakashi frowned thoughtfully, pulling at a loose thread in his mask as he studied the various elements that made up the pattern of the dense circular seal. Scaled up enough for a person to sit in the center (which was what it seemed to be meant for) it would probably be about twelve feet across. There was no label on the scroll, and Kakashi had never seen this seal before. Reaching out, he absently traced what he thought were some of the key symbols, trying to figure out what the purpose of their combination was. "Are there any rumors about this scroll, or any rumors about any scroll in the archives?"

"There are supposed to be a lot of cat summoning scrolls," Sasuke volunteered. "And I think one that people say Shisui-nii-san derived his body flicker technique from, and a lot of high-level security ward patterns, and once I heard someone say there was one that opened a portal to another world, but that's—"

"Exactly what we have here," Kakashi cut in.

Sasuke's eyes widened. "You mean—?"

"I don't know, but I really think we're on to something," Kakashi said.


	4. Chapter 2

[A/N: Sorry for the delayed update. The uploading mechanism was misbehaving or something, and I had a ton of homework to do.]

Chapter 2:

"So you want to talk to me?" Hide said, trying to stall as he judged how to get past the strangers to the station. "What abou—"

"Aniki!"

Hide took a step back and almost overbalanced as the black-haired child suddenly pounced on him.

"Aniki! I knew it, I knew we'd find you, I've missed you so much, we've been looking for _years_—" the boy looked up at Hide with a bright, eager smile, then paused. "Aniki?" he queried, the eagerness and the smile vanishing. "Aniki, it's me...Don't you remember me?"

Hide looked down at the boy, racking his mind for the slightest shred of recognition or emotional connection. He didn't come up with anything.

Sighing, Hide pulled the boy's hands away from his shirt. The kid was definitely a good actor, but Hide had had too many people pretending to be related to him to be easily fooled. "Look, I don't know you," he said. "You must be thinking of someone else."

"But—" the boy began to protest, then fell silent as the white-haired man made a small gesture.

"You might not know us, but we know you," he said, closing the orange book and fixing Hide with a serious gaze through his one visible eye.

Hide rolled his eyes. Whoever these people were, they hadn't thought this through very well. "Do you have any idea how many times that line has been used on me? I don't like people stalking me—" _especially weird cosplayers,_ he added mentally, "—and I'm not going to go along with whatever your scheme is, so why don't you take your little publicity stunt somewhere else? Besides, I have a train to catch," he added icily as he stalked past them, only to catch his sneaker on a crack in the sidewalk and almost fall flat on his face. Recovering himself (in yet another instance of unexpected dexterity), he headed for the station as quickly as he could without actually running, forcing himself not to look back.

"Well, that could have gone better," a voice said from behind him, probably the blonde boy who hadn't said anything during the little altercation.

"Naruto!" a girl's voice shouted.

"Ow! Sakura-chan..."

Hide couldn't hear anymore after that, as he had walked out of hearing range and the bustle of the train station was drowning out any other sounds. After the train doors had shut, he glanced back at where the strangers had been; they hadn't vanished like the first time he'd confronted them, but were walking slowly in the other direction. Well, if they weren't taking the train, then they wouldn't be able to get back to town before Hide, so he could relax for a little while.

Natsuko was setting the table when Hide arrived home, and Eriko and Aimi were putting together a puzzle on the floor. "There you are, Hide-kun," Natsuko said, sounding relieved. "You're not this late very often. Do you need something to eat before you head out again?"

"No, I'll be fine," Hide said. He didn't really feel like eating knowing that there were a bunch of stalkers after him, and if he did get hungry he could always have a bowl of ramen and have it taken out of his paycheck. Now, if only there were something he could do about his shadows...

Suddenly, he had a flash of brilliance. Or, while maybe not brilliance (as a genius he had high standards for this sort of thing), definitely a good idea. Dashing back to his room, he changed quickly before borrowing a ski hat of his father's. Pulling it down low over his eyes, Hide tucked his ponytail up inside so that he was sure it was secure.

"I'm leaving now," he said quickly as he passed through the dining room again on the way to the entrance. "Hopefully I'll be back before it's too dark." Sometimes he could leave early if it was a slow day.

"Hide!" Natsuko called from the door as he started the scooter. "Hide, why are you dressed as Mr. Spock?"

"It's a disguise!" Hide shouted back as he gunned the engine and roared off. Unfortunately, his scooter was too old to actually 'roar' anywhere, so it was more of a putter, but Hide didn't care as long as he was sailing down the open road.

Luckily, Akiyama-san didn't comment on Hide's unusual choice of outfit. He was too busy to, as today was not panning out to be a slow day at all. Hide had to dash all over town for his deliveries, and even though the rural farming town wasn't very big, it was sizeable enough that traversing it several times could be tiring. Still, he didn't see the strangers again and eventually began to think that they had lost interest when he had made it clear he wouldn't be tricked.

What Hide hoped would be one of his last deliveries of the day, as it was long past dark and he didn't like driving in town at night, took him into what passed for the business district to a couple of security guards on night shift. The delivery went well enough, but then he decided to take a shortcut through a narrow alley on the way back. The alley was only barely wide enough for the scooter, and by the time he noticed the wires strung across the other end it was too late for him to turn around.

So his clever disguise had failed. Of course, there really was only one scooter in town this held together with duct tape, and Akiyama Ramen only had one delivery boy, but at least _he_ had been cosplaying for a _reason_.

"What do you want?" Hide shouted at the seemingly empty air, trying to gun the scooter's engine menacingly. Whatever menace the engine's sound had ever had was long gone, however, and the action only served to remind Hide that the scooter's gas tank was almost empty.

"We told you before," a now all-too-familiar voice said as the white-haired man dropped down in front of him. "We want to talk to you."

"Well, I don't want to talk to you," Hide retorted, although it didn't look like he had much choice as the three kids dropped down behind him. They didn't look like they'd let him just walk past them again, and was that a _knife_ the pink-haired girl was holding? "But," he continued with a small shrug, "it looks like I'm stuck here until I give in, so okay. Talk. First off maybe you could try telling me who you people are, and where I come in."

"Look," the white-haired man began, "this may be a shock to you, but we know who you are."

"Yeah, sure. Last time I thought about it, eighteen people had already tried telling me that." Due to the not insignificant reward the Takedas had offered for Hide's true identity being discovered (despite the fact that they could in no way be described as rich), numerous people had falsely claimed to be related to him over the years. Since Hide didn't want the next headline he appeared in to be 'Amnesiac Dead At Hands Of Supposed Relatives' he was always on guard when somebody tried to tell him they knew who he was. "You get originality points for the costumes, but you really needed to work on the dialogue a bit."

The white-haired man raised an eyebrow. "You would be one to be cynical about this, wouldn't you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hide demanded. "Who are you?"

"I am Hatake Kakashi, jounin of Konoha ninja village, ninja registration number 009720."

Hide stared, struggling to think of a reply. "Okay, I'll admit, that's a new one." _They're crazy! They're all crazy!_

"Now will you listen to us?" Kakashi asked.

Hide sighed, and turned off the scooter—he didn't want to run out of gas in case he needed to make a fast getaway. Whether these people were crazy or ninjas, he had a feeling it would be a very good idea to do what they said. "Fine. But I have a job, so don't take too long about it."

"Sasuke's older brother disappeared several years ago," Kakashi began, indicating the dark-haired boy who had first accosted Hide. "Sasuke's been trying to find him ever since, so when he got a lead he asked us to help him. Anyway, it worked and we're here—that's where you come in: You look like him, your chakra's the same, no one seems to know your history or where you came from. We're pretty sure you're the person we're looking for…Uchiha Itachi."

Hide shook his head. "Really now. That's a nice story, I guess, but I'm going to need baby pictures, recent pictures, birth certificate, school identification cards, medical records, and anything else that might concern me, and then maybe I'll start thinking about believing you." These 'ninjas' did seem pretty earnest about the situation, but they were seriously creeping Hide out, so he hoped that if he blew them off as obviously as possible they would leave him alone.

"But Itachi—" Sasuke began, but Hide cut him off.

"Until then, my name is Takeda Hide. Now, will you please get out of my way?"

Kakashi shrugged. "Well, we tried," he said with a sigh, unhooking the wires that barred the end of the alley and stepping out of the way.

Hide started the scooter and sped off without a backward glance. It was more than an hour before his heart stopped racing.

By the time he headed home that night, it was almost pitch dark and there was no one else on the road. Hide tried to convince himself that he hadn't been followed, but it was hard not to imagine an ambush lying in wait behind every bush, or in the small orange orchard surrounding the house. The trees would make it far too easy for someone to sneak up to one of the bedroom windows.

Glancing over his shoulder edgily, Hide started to unlock the door, then jumped in shock as the door was opened from the inside.

"Are you all right, Hide-kun?" Natsuko asked, stepping to the side as he entered. Bakeneko slipped between them and out of the house—apparently she had been the reason for Natsuko's opening the door.

Hide tried to conceal how startled he was, but was only moderately successful. "S-sure, nee-san, I'm fine..." It would do no good to worry her, since there was little she could do to help.

"Well, if you say so," Natsuko said, frowning a little. She was clearly not convinced, but Hide knew she wouldn't pry.

Hurrying into his room, Hide fished his cell phone out of his school backpack before shutting the door and dialing a number he hadn't used in months.

The phone was picked up after only two rings. "Hello? Who's calling?"

"Officer Hayashi?" Hide said. "This is Hide."

"Hide?" The voice on the other end sounded immediately more alert. "What's wrong?"

"People are following me again."

One of the reasons Hide especially liked the officer assigned to his case was because Hayashi never suggested that he might be paranoid or deluding himself. There had been quite a few scares that turned out to be nothing, but Hayashi treated everything as if it was the truth until proven otherwise. "All right. Who, when, and where?"

"It was a man with white hair, even though I don't think he was very old, and three kids. They tried to convince me I was the brother of one of the kids, but I don't think they had planned for what to do if I didn't believe them right away. They've been following me ever since Saturday, but they only tried to talk to me this afternoon and tonight; this afternoon as I was coming out of school and tonight while I was out delivering ramen." Hide had been questioned by the police a lot, due to his circumstances, so he had become very good at providing the information needed in the most efficient manner possible.

Hayashi sighed. "Well, I'll see if there's any information on whether anyone's inquired about you lately. Listen, you have my number on speed-dial, right?"

"Right."

"If you run into them again, keep them talking and dial me. I should be able to trace you and then we can take care of whoever it is now. Sound good?"

"Good enough for now," Hide said.

Hayashi hung up and Hide looked thoughtfully around the room. Ten minutes and lots of careful balancing later, he had a very satisfactory ninjas-breaking-in trap, if he did say so himself. Anyone trying to raise the window more than six inches would pull a wire attached to an old alarm clock, thereby setting it off, and if that didn't take care of things a bucket of water was meticulously set up to fall on anyone who climbed all the way through the window.

That done, Hide slept soundly.


	5. Interlude II

[A/N: This is another new section.]

Interlude II:

"He doesn't know me," Sasuke whispered shakily. "He doesn't know me at all."

Sakura scooted a little closer on the cold metal park bench they were sitting on and silently put an arm around his shoulders. While Sasuke usually didn't allow such close contact from anyone and especially not from his female teammate, he was too despondent now to react with more than a half-hearted shrug.

Naruto and Kakashi were sitting on an adjacent bench a short distance away. Naruto was already asleep and Kakashi was being surprisingly tolerant of the way the blond was sprawled across his lap.

When they had first arrived in this town, Sasuke had been surprised at how obvious Itachi's chakra was. Why would he run away for years and then not even bother to hide? Even Kakashi had been a bit surprised, since he had been in ANBU and knew how good Itachi was at disguising his chakra.

Even so, Kakashi had refused to let them approach Itachi right away, to the point of dragging his three charges away (requiring some force, in Sasuke's case) when it looked like Itachi might be about to come after them.

The way the teacher had laid it out, there were a few possibilities as to why Itachi might be where he was and why he might not like it if Konoha people suddenly accosted him: first, he might have just left because he didn't want the responsibilities of being heir to the Uchiha clan and therefore would not be pleased to have his birthright shoved upon him again. Second, he might have left because someone was after him, in which case he wouldn't want his location exposed by people he knew coming up to him. Third, he might be on some sort of deep-cover mission and again, wouldn't want his location exposed.

Therefore, Team 7 had started out with just making their presence known from a safe distance, but that hadn't gotten any results except for making Itachi very edgy. At that point, Kakashi had decided that he had better speak to Itachi alone, but Sasuke had begged and begged until the teacher had permitted the three students to come along.

At that little meeting, Sasuke had promptly forgotten all Kakashi's reminders to stay back and let Kakashi do the talking. Throwing aside his usual reserve, he had practically pounced on his older brother, overcome by the excitement of being close to him again—only to be coldly rejected with no sign of recognition at all.

After that, Kakashi had made some effort at being reassuring before leaving the three of them in a secluded location and heading off to do some more research (their information-gathering up to now had been in the form of eavesdropping and a few careful questions asked of the locals). He hadn't come back with good tidings: originally, Kakashi had assumed that the limited knowledge of Itachi throughout the town was due to him being secretive, but according to the news articles he had found dated around the time of Itachi's disappearance, an unidentified boy had been discovered by the side of a rice field, with no memory of his identity or any facet of his life before that day. While it was possible that Itachi could be faking the amnesia, Sasuke hated to believe that his brother would turn him away that cruelly.

That made things even stranger—if Itachi really had amnesia, then what had happened and how did he get to this world in the first place? Team 7 had made it through with no ill effects.

They had made another brief attempt to contact Itachi later, but he had rebuffed them again after demanding proof that Sasuke wouldn't be able to provide without admitting to Father what he had been doing—and Sasuke didn't dare risk that. He could be expelled from the clan just for breaking into the archives, and considering the trouble Shisui had gotten in just for speaking Itachi's name…Sasuke didn't want to think about the consequences of actually trying to find him.

Kakashi had told Sasuke that they could try to talk to Itachi again tomorrow (Sasuke couldn't think of him as 'Hide,' it wasn't _right_), but if he still wouldn't believe them they would have to go back to Konoha and think of a new strategy. They had been gone long enough already that it would be difficult to explain away as a 'training excursion' back in Konoha, so this trip couldn't be prolonged much further.

Itachi had seemed pretty intimidated by Kakashi before, so Sasuke didn't think that he would be too inclined to trust the jounin again. But if Sasuke went to talk to him alone, without any threats, he might get somewhere.

Gently shrugging the now-sleeping Sakura's arm off, Sasuke glanced over at Kakashi again. The jounin may or may not have _actually _been asleep, but his eyes—or the one Sasuke could see, anyway—were closed. If he really was awake Naruto (who definitely was asleep and snoring with un-ninja-like volume) was clinging to his arm tight enough that it would take a few seconds for him to react.

Sasuke took a deep breath. He had one more chance to bring his brother home, he couldn't mess it up this time.


	6. Chapter 3

[Sorry for the update fail. I was basically dead to the world for a couple weeks because of finals, so even though I had this all written up I completely forgot about it. I got straight A's though!]

Chapter 3:

Hide's very interesting dream (involving the Enterprise, Romulans, and a large cargo of rubber chickens for some reason) was interrupted by a funny sort of _ping_ sound. It wasn't all that abnormal of a sound to be expected while one was travelling at Warp 7, but then Bakeneko hissed and jumped on his face. Hide instantly came fully awake, sitting up and dumping the cat to the floor.

"What the—"

The first thing he spotted, besides Bakeneko's furry gray rump, was a long, thin needle embedded in the wall above his nightstand. Following the probable trajectory of this, he saw his alarm wire hanging slack and a familiar dark-haired boy crouching in the open window. For a second Hide thought the boy's eyes were red, but then he blinked and they were dark—it had probably just been a trick of the light, or rather lack of light.

"How did you get in?" Hide asked, not very intelligently.

Sasuke didn't reply, but dropped lightly into the room and silently handed him the bucket of water. Hide had thought he was about ten the first time he'd seen him, but now he could see that he was definitely too tall for that—more like twelve.

"You cut through a wire with an acupuncture needle," Hide said, trying to get his mind around that.

"Yes."

"You cut through a wire with _one_ acupuncture needle."

"Yes..." Sasuke was looking a bit puzzled now. "It's not anything much. And they're called _senbon_, actually."

"Right," Hide said with a nervous laugh. "So I guess you're a ninja too, huh?"

Sasuke nodded, the action rustling his spiky hairstyle. "I wanted to talk to you, Aniki," he said, looking up at Hide with serious dark eyes.

Hide sighed, and motioned for Sasuke to sit down beside him on the bed. "I'm not your brother, you know."

"But you look just like him," Sasuke said insistently.

"Years and wishful thinking can do that," Hide pointed out. "You've mistaken people for your brother before, haven't you?"

After a few seconds, Sasuke nodded slowly.

"If you're that set on trying to convince me, go back to whatever you came from and find some pictures—maybe with both of us—and then we can talk some more."

Sasuke turned so that Hide couldn't see his face, and Hide took that opportunity to very quietly slip his cell phone off the nightstand. "I'd like to bring those things you said," Sasuke said softly, "But I don't know where they're kept, and if Otou-sama found out I was looking for you he'd be furious."

Hide frowned slightly. There had to be quite a story in here somewhere. "Why doesn't your father want you trying to find your brother?" he asked, flicking the cell phone open with the hand Sasuke couldn't see and starting to press buttons.

_At home get here NOW_

It wasn't a sterling example of punctuation but he had been in a hurry, Hide concluded as he sent the text message to Hayashi's number.

"I don't really know why," Sasuke was saying. "But after Itachi vanished, Otou-sama had all of his things boxed up and locked in the basement. He won't even talk to me about him; it's like he wants everyone to forget he existed. I don't get it, he used to hardly talk about anything else besides Itachi and how I should try to be like him."

It was too late for the trains to be running, so Hide would have to give Officer Hayashi plenty of time if he was coming from the police station. "Do you have any idea why your brother left?"

Sasuke shrugged. "All I know is that one day I came home from the Academy—"

"The Academy?" Hide interrupted curiously.

"Yes, the Ninja Academy," Sasuke repeated.

"You went to _ninja school_," Hide said incredulously.

"Of course I did!" Sasuke said, sounding annoyed. "I'm not _stupid_."

"Right, I'm sorry, go on," Hide said quickly. Obviously he had struck a nerve, although he wasn't sure exactly what Sasuke was so touchy about.

"Anyway, one day I came home from the Academy and Itachi wasn't there, and he never came back. He didn't leave a note, or anything, he just left, and no one ever found any sign even though the search mission was open for months. And so I've been trying to find him...to prove I'm not useless."

"What?" Hide was starting to feel a bit sorry for Sasuke; whatever situation the kid was in it sounded like a mess.

"Well," Sasuke continued, "some people...a lot of people, actually...say that he left because I was a bother to him. They don't say it when I'm around, but I know they say it. And Itachi was avoiding me for weeks before he left...I just want everyone to stop being so disappointed in me. I know I'm not nearly as good as Itachi, but they all expect me to be. I'm trying, I really am, but Itachi was a _genius_, and, well—I'm not. I even stole the scroll with the world-transfer technique in it so that we could get here, and if I can't find him after that I'll be in awful trouble. It's one of the oldest scrolls the clan has, and _nobody_ is allowed to even touch it, but I had to do something…"

Hide sighed, tucking the cell phone into a fold in the blankets. "Look, I'm going to close the window, okay? It's freezing in here now."

Sasuke let him close the window, and either didn't notice when he locked it or chose not to say anything. That was a bit strange, especially since the boy claimed to be a ninja. Sasuke had already said he wasn't stupid (and Hide fully believed him) so he probably just thought that he could trust Hide as much as he had ever trusted his elder brother.

Hide felt a bit guilty for the fact that he was about to prove him wrong. "If that's how it is, I don't see why you're going to all this trouble," he said. "Frankly, your brother kind of sounds like a jerk."

"Don't say that about Nii-san!" Sasuke snapped, bolting upright with his hands tightening into fists.

"As an impartial observer, I think I can say what I want based on what I've heard," Hide said calmly. "I wouldn't think very highly of myself if I abandoned my younger siblings."

"You don't understand," Sasuke said, relaxing a bit. Hide could just hear a car stop outside the house, and hoped Sasuke would keep talking and not notice. "He wasn't always like that. He used to be _wonderful._ But then he got too busy, and after that it was like he didn't even want to look at me, and I don't know what I did wrong!"

The sound of the front door opening was unfortunately unmistakable, and Sasuke froze, his eyes widening as he turned on Hide accusingly. "You tricked me!"

Hide grabbed for Sasuke's wrist before the boy could get to the window again, and was quite surprised that he actually succeeded. Even though he had locked the window, he didn't doubt that it would only have taken Sasuke a few seconds to remedy that. "No, I didn't. Didn't your parents ever tell you not to talk to strangers?"

"But you're not a—let me go!"

"Officer Hayashi, back here!" Hide called quietly as he heard the man's footsteps heading through the house. If his family was still asleep he would prefer that they stayed that way; there was a reason Hide slept in the far end of the house.

"You're lucky I have a key to your house," Hayashi said as he pushed open the door of the bedroom. "You're also lucky that this wasn't a false alarm; my wife was not pleased when I had to run out on her at three in the morning." Hayashi's coming from home would explain his fast arrival; his house wasn't located that far from Hide's. He had a key because Hide had a reputation for losing everything, so the Takedas had given a set of their keys to Hayashi to prevent him from being stranded outside again. "Who's this, one of the people who were following you before?"

Sasuke was staring at the handgun Hayashi held, his head tilted to one side and a slightly perplexed expression on his face.

_He's never seen a gun before,_ Hide suddenly realized. _Where on earth could he be from, if he's never seen a gun before?_ Then he had another thought. _What if he doesn't know it can hurt him—what if he tries to get away?_

"Hide?"

"Oh! Right, yes, he is. Sorry," Hide said. Luckily, Sasuke didn't fight back, although he glared bitterly at Hide as Hayashi put him in handcuffs. "Look, Sasuke, I'm sorry," Hide began, "But I'm really not the person you're looking for, and you _did_ break into my house."

Sasuke did not reply, and refused to look at Hide again as Hayashi escorted him out to the police car waiting in the road.

After the car had driven off, Hide closed and locked the front door and headed back to his bedroom.

"Nii-san?"

Hide stopped and turned to see Aimi standing in the door of her and Eriko's room, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. "Aimi-chan. How long have you been awake?" he asked, trying not to look like anything out of the ordinary was going on. Frankly, he was surprised more of the family weren't awake. Had Sasuke done something to keep them from noticing any disturbances?

"I only woke up just now," Aimi said with a yawn. "What was Hayashi-san doing here again?"

"That's not important," Hide said. Everyone would panic if they found out someone had broken in, and he doubted it would happen again. "Um, I thought I heard something, but everything's fine. You should go back to sleep, you have school tomorrow."

Aimi looked a little dubious, but nodded obligingly. "Okay. Goodnight, nii-san."

"Goodnight," Hide echoed, patting her gently on the head before hurrying back to his own room. Things were still pretty much in order there, and once he had reset the trap (splicing the severed wires back together) and hidden the needle that had been embedded in the wall, no evidence was left that anyone besides Hide had been in there.

The next day, Hide left school right away; Airi had wanted him to stay and help her, but he didn't want to be caught alone again and excused himself. "Natsuko," he said as they approached the train station, "I have to run an errand, okay? I'll be home after you."

"Sure," Natsuko said. "Just don't forget about your job again, okay?"

"Don't worry, I'm not going to forget," Hide assured her before she boarded her train.

It had been some time since he'd been to the police station, and this would be the first time he'd gone there by himself, but Hide would never forget the way there. After he had been first let out of the hospital, several weeks after he had been found, he had practically lived there as the police force attempted to find every possible clue to his identity. Since then, he had still gone there fairly often so they could bring him up to date on the latest breakthroughs. There hadn't been any breakthroughs for almost a year, though, and he knew that they had probably given up hope by now.

That didn't prevent them from welcoming him, though. "Hide-kun!" the receptionist greeted him, getting up from her chair to hug him. "I haven't seen you in months, how are you?"

"About as good as I can be," Hide replied after he had been released. "Is Hayashi here?"

"He was off on break, but he's just coming in behind you. Hayashi-san!" she called, waving to get the officer's attention, "Hide wants to talk to you!"

"So, Hide, what can I do for you?" Hayashi asked as they walked back to his office. "Let me guess; this is about last night?"

Hide nodded. "Has he told you anything?"

"Nothing helpful," Hayashi replied. "Just that his name is Uchiha Sasuke—and apparently he expected us to recognize the name, even though none of us did—and he comes from a place called Konoha. Either it's a very, very small town or it's not in Japan, because nobody's been able to find it on a map yet."

_Well, I'm willing to bet it's not in Japan..._ "What are you going to do with him?"

"We're not sure yet," Hayashi said with a small shrug. "He doesn't have any criminal record—or any records for that matter, no school or anything—and he wouldn't tell us how to contact his parents or the people he was with."

"I think you should just let him go," Hide said.

Hayashi frowned. "What?"

"I don't want to press charges or anything, since I somehow managed to keep Mother from finding out that he broke into the house and I'd like to keep it that way. Besides, I don't think he meant any harm. He just wanted to talk to me; I don't think he was trying to trick me, he really did think I was his brother. Please?" Hide clasped his hands, looking up at the officer with his best pleading face, the one that always worked on his surrogate father.

Hayashi sighed. "I don't like it, but I don't see what else we can do. Besides, maybe we can follow him and find the others."

Hide hadn't thought of that, but he wasn't about to let Hayashi know that. "See, you know I'm right."

"Sure, sure," Hayashi conceded, waving Hide towards the door. "Now get out of here, don't you have a part-time job?"


End file.
